kimmie rhodes: miracles on christmas day

2011 marks the thirtieth year since Kimmie Rhodes put out her debut album. Her twelfth release, Miracles On Christmas Day, started life some years back when, inspired by the success of longtime collaborator Willie Nelson’s festive number ‘Pretty Paper’, the Texan singer-songwriter made a vow to write at least one holiday song a year. Of the dozen songs here, then, nine are new, two are Christmas album staples (‘Carol Of The Bells’, ‘What Child Is This’, and the last is a tender, faithful cover of Patty Griffin’s ‘Mary’. The familiar softness of Rhodes’s voice takes on a new dimension of benevolence throughout these songs, her angelically soft country lilt synonymous with an earthy, kindly gaze.

The seasonal sounds of sleigh bells and glockenspiels, where employed at all, are relegated to the background throughout the album. More prominent are folksy and even jazzy textures like cello, piano, flute, hurdy-gurdy and accordion. Occasionally, Rhodes summons the more celestial sounds of theremin, glass harp and chimes, but mostly this is a very grounded record. Perhaps that’s why the best songs here are where Rhodes finally embraces strangeness. Her eerie take on ’Carol Of The Bells’ is steeped in the melody’s pagan, Eastern European roots, while original number ‘The Toymaker’s Hands’ is beautifully orchestrated with subtle percussion and the whistling of toy steam trains.

Miracles… has a tendency to get a little sleepy and there’s no denying that the lyrics sometimes stray into a cloying sentimentality, but overall this is quite a lovely little record, and one that stands apart from most of this year’s Christmas contenders.

[Sunbird; November 15, 2010]

Written by: Alan Pedder

Tags: kimmie rhodes, miracles on christmas day, patty griffin

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 23rd, 2010 at 4:36 pm and is filed under albums & EPs, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.